


Ain't got a quarter, got a postage stamp

by saltandbyrne



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Community: spn-masquerade, F/M, Frottage, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lapdance, Pining, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JDM is a weary cop, Danneel is a stripper with a heart of gold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't got a quarter, got a postage stamp

**Author's Note:**

> Written for round 3 of spn-masquerade for the prompt: JDM is a weary cop, Danneel is a stripper with a heart of gold. Literally anything you want to do from there is golden!
> 
> This is angsty and doesn't have a happy ending.
> 
> Title is from Pasties and a G-string by Tom Waits.

Neon glints off Jeff’s face as he pulls around the back, parking his ‘89 Oldsmobile by the dumpster.  
  
Not sure why he bothers any more.  
  
The crowd at Cherché is a little thin tonight, just the usual fat bikers and worn-down working girls leaning on the bar. Margie’s eyes ain't so good any more and she squints at him when he comes in.  
  
"The usual, Jeff?"  
  
He takes his bourbon and grimaces. Margie would water down pussy itself if it would make her an extra buck. He should just keep a bottle of his own back there, but the glorified lighter fluid he swills back tastes like penance. He should stay home if he wants the good shit.  
  
"She'll be up next song."  
  
Margie flicks her waddle at the stage and raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Don't go flashing that badge. Got a new girl in from Shreveport, don’t wanna spook her none."  
  
Jeff drinks his shitty bourbon and snorts. He's not doing Vice's dirty work any more than they're picking up the slack with his body count.  
  
He rubs a hand at his temple.  
  
Rumor has it Margie was hot shit in her day. His old man had some raunchy stories about half the football team tripping over themselves to see who could pop her cherry first. Everyone gets old eventually.  
  
The best AC can barely keep the swamp heat at bay down here. Margie's got girls showing their tits who weren't born the last time she had someone come fix hers.  
  
No one comes here to be comfortable.  
  
Sandy's up on stage, dancing to Styx like her soul ain't seen her body in a good long while.  
  
Jeff knows the feeling.  
  
Hands slide over his shoulders, rubbing at tense muscle.  Jeff’s eyes slide shut. It always settles in his shoulders.

 

“Buy a girl a drink?”

 

There's a long established symbiosis between working girls and joints like Margie's. They hover hungry around the bar, a coven of witches with too much mascara and jaundiced skin that can only pass for tan in lighting this shitty.  
  
"You know I don't pay for it, sweetheart."  
  
Kim gives him one last squeeze before he shrugs her off.

 

"You keep telling yourself that, old man," Kim mutters.  
  
He orders her a drink anyway, some shit that smells like sun tan lotion and a vacation the neither of them'll ever see.  
  
The heat gets to people down here, cooks them wrong sometimes. Jeff's seen some shit that'd drive most people possum mad.  
  
Something in Kim’s eyes tell him she's seen worse.  
  
A few of the more sober patrons bother to clap when Sandy's done. She saunters down into the sparse crowd, too comfortable in those clear shoes for that young face.  
  
Jeff had been born into his career too.  
  
"Enjoy your _dance_ ," Kim whispers, sucking an ice cube between teeth she sure wasn't born with.  
  
Jeff takes his drink to a table at the edge of the floor. The seat's half duct tape and the table lists to one side but it's got the clearest view of the stage.  
  
Danneel's wearing blue tonight.  
  
Cherry pie pumps from the tinny speakers as she turns her back to the audience. She always goes for the classics.  
  
She's still got that same prom queen grin.  Ten years of hard living have left their mark on her but nothing could tarnish that Colgate smile, not for Danni.

 

There’s a moment on stage where she forgets herself, where her eyes slide shut and she just dances.  Sandy’s better at the pole moves and Cindy always draws a bigger crowd, but no one can touch Danni when she’s got her hands in her hair and her ass grinding against the pole. 

 

Her tits are out but Jeff just stares at her face, the little smile on her lips and the makeup soaking up the flick-bright shine of the lights.  It’s been a while now since she’s had to dance with her hair in her face, hiding her black eye flirty for anyone who didn’t look too close. 

 

Now she’s just the kind of weary a woman rounding thirty comes to expect around here.  She’s got circles under her eyes, sure, but kids and a no-good sister’ll do that to a body.

 

Jeff tears his eyes away to glare at the other men, leering and vicious in the pulse-strobe lights.  None of them deserve her, not even a little. 

 

Not even Jeff.

 

She finishes with a split and a cute wave at the crowd. Ice bleeds into Jeff’s drink, like anything could water down the skip in his chest as she vaults herself off-stage.

 

Those old cheerleader tricks are the only things she learned in high school that still serve her well.

 

She flirts her way through the crowd, hair flipping and fingers dancing over hunched shoulders and leather vests. The track lights around the stage make her hair glow amber soft and Jeff presses two fingers to his lips.

 

She blows a kiss at him.

 

The champagne room at Cherché hasn’t had champagne since Reagan was in office.  It’s not even really a room, just a curtained-off corner with three strings of dead Christmas lights and a sturdy old chair. 

 

Jeff leaves his drink and follows her.

 

There’s all sorts of laws people don’t follow. Folks aren’t supposed to go around killing each other, fathers aren’t supposed to touch their little girls, there’s a special place in hell for anyone who could hang a dog, and that’s just the paperwork Jeff filed today.

 

He’s not supposed to touch Danni but she puts his hands around the warm dip of her waist and lets him lift her into his lap, giggling. She’s got two kids on her cheerleader waistline but she’s still light in his arms, light enough that he can carry the rest, all the beaten-down mothers and dead-eyed kids and the damn dogs that still get to him the worst.

 

She starts to grind against him and he can carry it all.

 

All that hair falls in his face as she does her routine, spinning in his lap to sit back against him.  She puts his hands on her stomach, letting him slide down until his fingertips hit the horizontal stretch of that scar she always tries to hide.

 

Son of a bitch hadn’t even come to the hospital for the second one.

 

She hooks a leg around the back of the chair, angling herself to press against him.  He’s hard, teeth grit together as she works her hips and hits him right. Jeff ain’t dead yet and he’s just a man, with his hand splayed over the warmth of her stomach and his breath a papers-breadth away from her skin.  Danni takes care of him and he tries not to hold on too tight when she’s done.

 

She’s good at acting like she doesn’t see him wipe himself off with one of the sandpaper towels stacked in the corner. It’s a kindness to him before she perches back on his lap and waits.

 

She never has to ask him for it.

 

“You use this for little Colby, now.”

 

Jeff tucks a bill that ought to be crisper into her hand.

 

God, she looks good, that smile on her face, her nose scrunching as she laughs, all of her in one blessed piece with the only blue on her face from all that eye shadow.  She smooths the waistband of her panties over her scar and shakes her hair back before she runs her fingers over the gray streaking his temples.

 

“I’ll tell him his fairy godfather got him a new set of football pads.”

 

Godfather still sounds better than john. Jeff’ll take it, one more shameful weight to shoulder.  He’ll shell out as long as she’ll let him pretend he’s not paying.  Not like he has shit else to spend it on.  There’s worse habits to feed, and at least Danni won’t blow it all on dope any more, now that it’s just her and the kids.

 

Danni’s kids ain’t had a daddy for a good while now. Jeff’s happy to carry that one.

 

Margie gives him a knowing look as he shuffles his way out, shoulders hunched back down before he even hears the squeal of the back door behind him.  He tries not to look at himself in the rear view as he pulls out, at the blacks and blues shadow-sketched on his face.  It’s time to carry himself home, at least for now.

 

The good lord willing and the river don’t rise, Jeff’ll be back next week.


End file.
